We were not a little disappointed with you.
Translation seems confusing, perhaps intended to sound sarcastic, like “we weren’t just a little, but a lot, disappointed in you.”
The translator says, “I am a little disappointed in you.”
The English is unclear and if anything, implies that “we were not disappointed in you” the opposite, it seems to me, of the Japanese sentence. Also, I wonder if a native speaker would assume the subject of the sentence to be we or I?
I see the translation feels confusing; 少なからず means “not a little (at all)”, that is “the opposite of a little”, “considerably”.
So my take on the sentence, as a fellow learner, is “We were really disappointed with you.”
So, a clear translation, it seems to me (a fellow learner), would be,
“We were more than a little disappointed in you” which seems much clearer with regard to the meaning of the sentence in English than “We were not a little disappointed in you” which sounds almost like it could be “We were not the least bit disappointed in you, great job,” Anyway, thanks for clarification regarding 少なからず.
@sjfree @mike-lima
On a 0-10 scale, 少ない ranges from 1 to 3 while 非常に (really; very much) does from 8 to 10. 少なからず (not 少ない) theoretically can range from 4 to 10. However, 少なからず in the real usage would range from 4 to 7 – i.e. neither 少ない nor 非常に, but in the middle of them.